Love According to Christ
Not Feelings or Niceness, but Obedience to God and Sacrificial Faithfulness
The world says love is a feeling. Many Christians confuse love with mere niceness. However, the Bible says it is obedience, covenant, and sacrifice.
Jesus could not be clearer:
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).
Love is not a passing emotion, a rush of hormones, or a vague sense of warmth toward others. According to Scripture, love is covenantal faithfulness expressed in joyful obedience to God and sacrificial service toward others.
The apostle John defines it without compromise:
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).
Love is obedience. It is not lawlessness disguised as kindness, nor affirmation of what God calls sin. Love rejoices in the truth (1 Corinthians 13:6). When we obey God’s commands, we are walking in the love He Himself has defined.
But love is also self-giving. Christ Himself shows us the shape of love:
“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
Paul says God demonstrated His love “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Husbands are commanded to love their wives “just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
Love flows from the very nature of God. “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This does not mean love is whatever we wish it to be, but that God defines and embodies love. He is the standard. He is the fountain. And He has revealed love supremely in the cross of Christ, where covenantal obedience and sacrificial service meet in perfect harmony.
To love is therefore not to follow our feelings, but to reflect God’s character. It is to bind ourselves in covenant, to walk in obedience, and to pour out ourselves for others, even at cost. Love is not defined by us, but by Him.
Love is not defined by our feelings but by God’s truth. To love rightly is to love as He loves.
Semper Reformanda
Many object: “But doesn’t love mean accepting people as they are?” Yet Scripture says, “This is love, that we walk according to His commandments” (2 John 6). Accepting sin is not love. It is hatred.
Others say: “But God is love (1 John 4:8), so love must be unconditional acceptance.” Yet the same letter says: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments” (1 John 5:2). God’s love never contradicts His holiness.
Still others insist: “Love is a feeling… you just know it when you feel it.” Scripture disagrees: “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18). Love is action in accordance with God’s Word, not an undefined mood.
Truth That Withstands
The world’s definition of love is ever-shifting, but God’s Word is unchanging. Love is covenantal obedience to God, self-giving sacrifice for others, and it flows from the very nature of God Himself. To redefine love is to distort God. To obey God and serve others in truth is to love as He loves. The cross of Christ is the final and perfect picture of love: obedience unto death and sacrifice for the beloved. This is the truth that withstands.
Short link: https://reformlet.com/love